There's a wealth of statistical data that shows that cooperatives are more resilient and stable than classical owner run enterprise, here's a Stanford paper citing a lot of good sources on it[1].
Largely the reason so few businesses are cooperatives is because if you are an active participant in the founding of a business its in your own self interest to retain as much power over it as possible, which leads you to want to establish a dictatorship rather than a democracy - even if you aren't the founder / owner / CEO, being a first generation "lord" of the company will net you much greater bounty if it succeeds than if your compensation was dictated by a majority of your peerage.
That and absolutely nobody knows what cooperatives even are. Establishing a complex managerial democracy is way excessive for mom and pop shops or businesses with less than a half dozen employees and then those dictatorships scale up into larger and larger enterprises with no incentive to transition away from top down power structures. The benefits are largely for those who, under the current regime, have no power or say anyway, and thus the utility of more stable, productive, or resilient businesses is lost when it would cost the founders and owners their potential for ludicrous wealth and unquestionable power.
Largely the reason so few businesses are cooperatives is because if you are an active participant in the founding of a business its in your own self interest to retain as much power over it as possible
There is no reason a software company couldn’t operate like a law firm or architecture firm with “partners”. It just doesn’t because software developers are too focused to the technical aspects and ignore the bigger picture.
Thanks. These almost all either agriculture or grocery companies. I was looking for a list of tech companies since that’s what I’m interested in and what’s usually discussed here.
Largely the reason so few businesses are cooperatives is because if you are an active participant in the founding of a business its in your own self interest to retain as much power over it as possible, which leads you to want to establish a dictatorship rather than a democracy - even if you aren't the founder / owner / CEO, being a first generation "lord" of the company will net you much greater bounty if it succeeds than if your compensation was dictated by a majority of your peerage.
That and absolutely nobody knows what cooperatives even are. Establishing a complex managerial democracy is way excessive for mom and pop shops or businesses with less than a half dozen employees and then those dictatorships scale up into larger and larger enterprises with no incentive to transition away from top down power structures. The benefits are largely for those who, under the current regime, have no power or say anyway, and thus the utility of more stable, productive, or resilient businesses is lost when it would cost the founders and owners their potential for ludicrous wealth and unquestionable power.
[1] https://siepr.stanford.edu/sites/default/files/publications/...